March 4, 2013

Issue: (1) Whether due process permits a court to exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant whose sole “contact” with the forum state is his knowledge that the plaintiff has connections to that state; and (2) whether the judicial district where the plaintiff suffered injury is a district “in which a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred” for purposes of establishing venue under 28 U.S.C. §1391(b)(2) even if the defendant’s alleged acts and omissions all occurred in another district.

In the commercial context, the short answer is "Yes." If you sell goods or services all over the country you should expect to be sued all over the country. The trickier thing is tort or other similar liability in a non-commercial context (like this case).

It's a Bivens case against a Georgia cop who was working with the DEA and supposedly prepared a false affidavit in connection with a proposed seizure of cash from some professional gamblers. After the DOJ declined to bring forfeiture proceedings, the plaintiffs sued the Georgia cop in Nevada. A divided panel of the 9th Cir reversed the DCt's dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.

Like the standing case Ann blogged about a week or so ago, this one can have only one outcome. The question will be how broadly the reversal is written.

@ Widmerpool....Thanks for pointing out that Long Arm Jurisdiction exists, but this is a Constitutional tort case where venue can be critical.

Bivens itself is a narrowly created right to tort damages from officers of the law, but this expands its reach beyond its designed remedy and more importantly sets a precedent that could apply in State tort cases as well.

"So if I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, but I did it from across the California border, would Nevada courts have jurisdiction?"

This is the standard civpro hypo -- shooting across the border. It's clearly enough for the constitutional requirement of due process.

A closer hypo would be if you shot a man in California, knowing he was planning on going to Reno later, could you be sued in Nevada.

I would think that under this hypo alone that federal jurisdiction would become defacto since it was a crime committed across state lines. The discharge of a weapon on one side of the state that led to the death/murder of another on the other side. Who gets jurisdiction over that? I would have thought the feds.